Getting A Bit Concerned

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I recently fell asleep at work. I have done this a few times at my desk and it was only for a minute or so. We work in quite a relaxed office so noone really said anything, and I was aware of my surroundings the whole time I felt but when I came to I joked about narcolepsy.

In reality id felt like this a few times over the past few months. Im 26 and had previously connected it to eating sugary food. I'm generally fit and healthy so it seemed whenever I had ice cream or something out of the ordinary is have a 'sugar crash' and get incredibly tired ery quickly. After my narcolepsy joke I had a look on google at the symptoms and, not to be a hypocondriac, was a bit concerned.

See out of the four symptoms, I had a few too many to be comfortable with. Whilst I have never had what id call cataplexy, thinking back I have had a few impromptu naps. Mainly at work in the past year or so, occasionally in school. I wouldn't say I had excessive sleepiness but my job is high intensity and long hours.

The main ones that concern me are the sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations. I have had sleep paralysis for years and read up on it in my teens so it never struck me as odd or uncommon. I also found out that when I don't sleep on my back it didn't happen nearly as often, although sleeping in strange places such as my office I would still have incidents.

What struck a chord is that in the past few months I've had a few incidents that are apparently unique to narcolepsy. These involve sleep paralysis at the onset of sleep, which happens often as I drift off on my back or if I'm on a couch or something sleeping when I shouldn't, and hallucinations when trying to sleep. These commonly involve waking up an hour or so after starting to sleep with my heart racing and struggling to focus in the dark. The shadows in my room form figures, often my brain will either tell me these are my flatmate in my room, or else I get panicked and turn on my light. After my lamp comes on it takes a few seconds to focus on the absurdity of the situation, but this I thought was just the shock of waking up suddenly.

I remember a time when I was 18 when I first had a memorable one of these. I woke up seeing a small black ball next to my head with kind of tentacles coming off it. I jumped out of my bed and turned on my lamp but the ball was still there. I knew I was awake and my heart was racing. I threw my quilt on it before a few seconds passes and the absurdity of what was happening dawned on me. I looked again and obviously nothing was there, but the whole incident freaked me out. This is almost identical to what has happened lately.

These things happen a few times a week and I'm starting to put the pieces together. I would say they happen more after a night at the gym which involves drinking a pre workout energy drink full of stimulants which may exasperate the symptoms, but I doubt this could be seen as a cause. I anything I can only see this making them worse.